


Grief and a Soft Amber Home

by Rose_Lattes



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 07:53:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19763833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rose_Lattes/pseuds/Rose_Lattes
Summary: Caleb had time to process Molly's departure. Jester did not. Caleb takes it upon himself to help guide Jester to some form of comfort.Takes place mid-episode 30.Made for Widojest Week - Day 2: Healing





	Grief and a Soft Amber Home

_“Where’s Molly?”_

_“Jester,” Caleb said softly._

The tide rushed to shore, bringing a layer of seafoam and a low roar with it. The wave sent water over her heart and soaked her with the intensity of death and the astringent scent of reality.

Jester had never lost like this.

“Here, for you,” Caleb said. His voice was slow, weighed down from exhaustion and solemnness. Jester turned to him with a wide smile. The expression did not look right, her eyes did not crinkle nor did her right incisor puncture her bottom lip. Her smiles were infectious, groundbreaking, and this was not one of them.

Caleb clutched the soiled fabric of her bag between his gloved hands and raised his arms. “I’ve been carrying this for you.”

It took Jester a moment to muster up the energy for a true response, but when she did, she exclaimed “My bag!” and reached out to take it from him. “Thank you, Caleb.”

“Mmhm,” Caleb mumbled while scooting away from her.

She cocked her head to the side and held the bag close to her chest. “Although, it looks really good with your coat,” she said in that sing-song voice of hers. Caleb was going to shatter beneath her faux cheerfulness. She had healed his wounds so quickly, yet he could clearly see the dark bruises coating her arms. With every movement, her sleeves showed him more.

“I know,” he responded, watching the way she adjusted the bag along her shoulders in inhibited movements.

She pressed her lips together and caught his eyes with a raw tenderness he had not been expecting. Caleb released a shaky breath. “Thank you,” she whispered, allowing her pain to breach the surface of her expression. Her dark eyebrows dipped above her normally lively eyes.

Caleb cleared his throat and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “Looks better on you,” he said, awkwardly casting his eyes away from her bruised body and tense brow.

Throughout the day, he watched as she flittered from conversation to conversation, never lingering for long. Unlike him, she wore her grief well, far behind the shore of reality.

He wondered if she was drowning, and what, if anything, he could do to save her.

That night, he had created his first dome. It was light brown with hints of orange, and it was his. “Caleb, can you hear through it?” Jester shouted from outside. She was pressed up against the surface of the energy, cupping her hands around her eyes as she attempted to look in. She looked ridiculous, with her tangled hair surrounding her face like a dark blue storm cloud, but for the first time since they had retrieved her from her manacles, she looked alive. Brimming with energy, and enthralled by _Caleb’s_ spell, Jester Lavorre’s marvel for the world fought the heavy oppression of grief.

Caleb, knowing she couldn’t see him, smiled. “Yeah!” he called back, breathless, and equally amazed.

“Can we come into it?” she asked.

“Only you,” he said quickly, without a filter barring his voice. He cared very little about offending the others, or what singling her out implicated, all he knew was that at that moment she was _happy_ , and he wanted to make that instance of joy last as long as he could.

Jester bravely stepped forward and entered the hut. She spun on her heel and examined the now transparent dome walls. Her chapped lips parted, forming a perfect capital ‘o’ and she turned to him with absolute wonder in her eyes.

Playing to his role as magician, Caleb raised his finger to his lips. “They can all come in, but, be quiet,” he whispered, and she nodded, captivated by the man behind the spell.

“Okay, okay.” Jester craned her neck back, her thick locks bunched at the collar of her dress. “This is so cool! Well—you need like pillows in here, Caleb. This is really neat.”

Caleb ran his hand down the side of his rough-shaven face. “Well, it’s—”

Nott stuck her leg through the dome, testing the contents of the hut before fully diving in. She bent at the knee and stared up at Caleb. “Did it work?” she asked.

With his previous sentence still on his lips, Caleb paused and watched as Nott’s large yellow eyes twitched, he glanced back to Jester before clearing his throat. “Hello,” he greeted.

“Hi,” Nott responded, and from the corner of his eye, Caleb could see Jester’s open mouth grin, she often succumbed to. When the woman smiled, she smiled with her entire body, curved shoulders, and loose stance; it was something he had always admired about her. She _felt_ with her entire being.

“Are you oh-kay?” Fjord asked, his deep voice vibrated the room, and Caleb hid his amusement behind a small smile. If he knew that this one spell would bring their entire party so much joy, he would have started learning it a week earlier.

“You can’t see us, but we can see you,” Caleb explained, shifting from toe to heel. “I have been working on this for weeks.” He turned to Jester with an intense smile, pride flushed his skin and sent a trail of goosebumps along his forearms.

Picking up on the wizard’s rare excitement, Jester swiveled her head again and took note of every detail she could find. “This is really cool!” Her words were genuine, and so was her joy. Another blush, deeper and far too warm for his liking, burned the tips of Caleb’s ears.

Across from him, Jester leaned forward, and Caleb straightened his back. “Can anybody come through? Or only your friends?” Caleb raised his hand and pointed a finger to her, ready to speak. She tilted her head and wagged her brow. “Only people that you _like_?”

Caleb dropped his hand and parted his lips. For a moment, all he did was breathe. He watched as she swayed on her feet to a song only her heart could drum. She wanted an answer, and so for her and her song’s sake, he gave her one. “You can come in.”

She leaned forward with a smile; her incisor pinched her bottom lip, a testament to its validity. “That means you like me,” she stated, fully aware that it was a fact.

Caleb let his feature’s drop in faux passiveness. She giggled, and Caleb turned to grab Fjord and pull him into the hut, giving himself an escape from the woman’s intoxicating energy.

Once Caleb turned away, and the others occupied the tiny hut, Jester’s lips twitched and threatened to fall.

As the night continued, they handed out recently acquired treasures and created a ‘pillow fort,’ which was simply a hodgepodge of splintered furniture and lumpy cushions but gave them all comfort none the less. At one point, Caleb lost sight of Jester. Anxiety bubbled between his heart and his stomach, and Caleb peered within the nooks and crannies of the fort. She was nowhere to be seen.

If he left the hut, the spell would fade, so Caleb called Frumpkin into existence and sent the cat out in search for her. Caleb laid down across what he considered his bed for the night. He told Nott that he was going to sleep and rolled over onto his shoulder. He called to Frumpkin, asked for the fey’s controls, and once the fey responded with a low purr, Caleb transferred his senses into the cat’s form.

With glowing eyes and lithe limbs, Caleb traversed the large halls of the keep. Using his nose, he nudged each door open, tracing each wall with a lengthy glance, before moving onto the next. He found Jester at the end of a narrow hall. She sat with her legs straight in front of her, the heels of her boots tapped one wall, while her back laid against the other. The sketchbook he had often seen her holding with such tenderness, laid in her lap. She fingered the edge of her page while her pen hovered over the parchment.

She was shaking.

Ink dripped from the nib of her pen, blotting the paper in thick droplets of black. A tear, the first breach of the dam, fell from her thick lashes and landed within the ink. Caleb pushed Frumpkin’s form forward. He chirped softly, and Jester’s trance broke. She looked up from her stained sketchbook, eyes faded and face fractured. “Oh, Frumpkin,” she whispered as she extended her hand.

Caleb felt it was an invasion of privacy on his part, to remain in the cat’s form, but as he rubbed his cheek along Jester’s outstretched fingers, he realized he had found a way to help her. Without warning, Jester picked Frumpkin up and buried her nose into the nape of his neck. Her tears stained the cat’s coat, but the only response she got was a firm purr.

She set her sketchbook down and placed the cat on her lap. She stroked Frumpkin’s forehead, running her unsteady fingers over his head and down around his cheeks. Frumpkin laid down against her thighs, he extended his paws and flexed them as he continued to purr. Folding at the waist, Jester gently rested her head across Frumpkin’s body. Her uneven breaths ruffled his fur, but Caleb did not tell Frumpkin to stop purring. 

Jester’s chest shuddered as she muffled a sob. “Molly would have loved it.” Her whisper came as a scream and Caleb instinctually moved to pull away from Frumpkin’s conscience, but wrapped up in her bruised arms and breaking heart, he felt as if it were his duty to see this through. As if he did not trust the fey to finish the job, Caleb remained in control of Frumpkin’s breath, and he would remain at the helm until Jester’s fingers stopped shaking, and her eyes dried enough for her to pick up her pen and sketch what she so struggled to sketch.

He would absorb her grief, just as the sand absorbed the ocean.


End file.
